The Fifth Food Group

Fortunately, I'm past the point in my life when this news would have impacted me. But there was a time when this would have been devastating to both my budget and my health...

Frozen pizzas recalled due to E. coli
Totino's and Jeno's brands may have contaminated pepperoni

MINNEAPOLIS - General Mills on Thursday recalled two brands of its frozen pizzas with pepperoni toppings because the meat may have been possibly contaminated with the bacteria E. coli.

The recall affects roughly 414,000 cases of pizza products in stores and all similar pizza products in consumers' freezers, the company said in a statement. General Mills has voluntarily recalled eight kinds of Totino's and three types of Jeno's frozen pizza, which have pepperoni or other meat products.

The company said it is working with federal and state food authorities, and launched an investigation immediately after learning about the potential contamination. Since July 1 of this year, Totino's and Jeno's have distributed more than 120 million pizzas nationwide. The pizzas were produced at a Wellston, Ohio, plant. The tainted food was uncovered by state and federal authorities investigating 21 cases of E. coli-related illness in 10 states. Roughly half of the individuals who became sick were hospitalized. The first case was reported on July 20. Nine of the 21 people reported having eaten Totino's or Jeno's pizza with pepperoni before becoming ill.

Halloween - Lakewood Style

In college I occupied a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment with my friends Jonathan and Jason. As I've mentioned before, apartment #129 at Lakewood Village was a popular place in 1997 (wow, ten years ago) and we decided to throw a little Halloween party.

Jason was easily the most level-headed of the three of us, so when he came home with glow-in-the-dark crayons to draw monsters on the walls, we didn't object. It was really quite brilliant. You could draw on the walls, then easily clean them when the party ends. The glow-in-the-dark ghosts and goblins were a big hit and though it wasn't as easy as advertised, it did come off (the walls were about the only thing in that apartment that did survive).

After the guests left, I went to bed thinking about Linda Blair's head spinning around. In the middle of the night a large volume of IBC root beer and Yoohoo insisted on leaving my body.

When I opened my bedroom door, headed for the bathroom, I was greeted by the scariest glow-in-the-dark crayon monster of all. It seems in our less-than-thorough cleaning we missed one. Suddenly my trip to the restroom was no longer required, clean shorts on the other hand...

Things That Go Bump in the Night

I like scary movies. I really like them. It's indefensible, I know. I don't have a single friend who shares this interest with me, so this is a hobby I enjoy pretty much alone. Which is ironic, considering this is one thing you don't want to do alone.

My interest in this suspect form of entertainment is clearly the result of having no parental supervision on my television viewing habits as a child. Actually, as long as I'm laying blame, my grandmother is probably most responsible. She was an avid fan of the mystery genre, watching Charlie Chan like he might be outlawed at any moment. She was also the first person I knew with a VCR. And when you're picking out a movie at Bud's Gas-N-Go, the mystery and horror selections tend to overlap. Neither of us were overly familiar with the rating system either. For all we knew, G, PG, PG-13 and R could have been the formula for cold fusion.

So it was that my introduction to this wonderfully entertaining art form came at the hands of my grandmother. And In the spirit of Halloween I want to share my top 5 favorite fright flicks.

5 - The Others - A twist on the classic haunted house

4 - Poltergeist - 25 years later, still one of the most intriguing horror movies ever made

3 - Night of the Living Dead - Zombies are, by far, my favorite monster

2 - The Evil Dead - A completely over-the-top combination of ghosts and zombies

1 -The Shining - You know something is a pop-culture phenomenon when the Simpsons do it